Primitive Methodist church in Wellington Square, North Adelaide, from 1880s later dance, television studios
The Primitive Methodist church in Wellington Square, North Adelaide, that became the studio for shows such as Adelaide Tonight during its days as home to NWS Channel 9.
The Primitive Methodist church building – considered “one of the handsomest… in the fair City of Adelaide” when it opened in 1882 on Wellington Square, North Adelaide, had a major scene change to the Studio Theatre, Joanne Priest’s dance studio and then NWS Channel 9 television studio from the 1950s. In between, it had been a Lutheran church for 20 years since the early 1930s
Primitive Methodists were a important stream of Methodism (others: Wesley Methodist, Bible Christians, United Methodist Free Churches) in early South Australia. They already had 25 chapels and five ministers in the colony when the North Adelaide parish started with a church building, designed by James W. Cole, facing Tynte Street, North Adelaide, in 1857-58.
Boom years and the closer settlement of the town acres in North Adelaide in the 1870s forced the need for larger church accommodation. In 1881, South Australian pioneer architect Daniel Garlick prepared a design for the new church on the site but facing Wellington Square.
The foundation stone for this church, the largest Primitive Methodist in South Australia, was laid by chief justice Samuel Way in 1881, with construction by Thomas Gidely. Although Primitives Methodists had working-class origins, the Wellington Square building in a wealthy North Adelaide area had robustly handled classical elements, distinguishing its Protestant nonconformity from the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches that were usually in the gothic idiom.
Although the building was like a cathedral church for the Primitive Methodists and attracted the prominent ministers Hugh Gilmore and John Day Thompson, demographic change and the union of Methodist denominations in 1900 saw the building move from a central role. By 1925, the future of the congregation and building was uncertain with churches opening in newer suburbs, influencing all North Adelaide churches including the Edmund Wright-designed Methodist church in Archer Street, North Adelaide.
There was concern that shutting the Wellington Square church "would weaken Protestantism in a strong Roman Catholic centre, and Methodism would proclaim itself a failure and give up a valuable position and a fine property”. But the church’s debt forced it to be closed between 1928 and 1932.
Immediately after it second 20-years phase as a Lutheran church, the church building was remodelled as The Studio Theatre by architectural firm of Berry and Gilbert and constructed by Webber and Williams.
Dance teacher Joanne Priest had used the masonic buildings in North Terrace, Adelaide city, for her classes after she returned from England in the 1930s. She later moved to premises known as The Blue Door in Porter’s Lane, west of Pulteney Street in Adelaide city south, before moving to the former church on Wellington Square.
NWS Channel 9, through its ownership changes after being started by Rupert Murdoch, stayed at the Tynte Street studios from 1959 until the move into the city centre in 2015. Three cottages next to the former Primitive Methodist Church (state heritage listed in 1986), including its former manse, were also recommended for heritage listing. The cottages also had been associated and Channel 9 and radio station 5DN in its first move from the city centre to North Adelaide.
